


i say a lot of things that i don't mean

by hellblazeit



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, Sort of? - Freeform, spoilers for episode 36
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-18 14:34:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16120499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellblazeit/pseuds/hellblazeit
Summary: Caleb closes his eyes, and if the smell of salt didn't cling to him like a second skin, if the wood beneath his feet didn't creak and tilt and pitch him forward and backward on his feet, the dull roar of the waves could almost be mistaken for the roaring of flames.( or, it's far too cold at sea, and caleb realizes he just called a bunch of assholes his family and meant it )





	i say a lot of things that i don't mean

**Author's Note:**

> title from the song "mean it" by k. flay. in case you didn't see the tags, spoilers for episode 36! this takes place around the end of caleb and nott's watch together.
> 
> i wrote this at 2am with no outline and no idea where i was going with this, so deepest apologies if none of it makes a lick of sense.

The deck of the ship — _their_ ship, their _stolen_ ship, their _not at all planned for, dear gods what have they done_ stolen ship — provides very little cover from the chill of the night air, and Caleb shivers, hunches further into himself and pulls his coat a little more tightly across his chest in an attempt to make himself small enough that the cold will, perhaps, not notice him and simply pass him by. It's a futile effort; his coat is meager protection at best, threadbare and stiff with salt and dried blood and whatever else it's picked up in their travels, and the weather of course doesn't give a shit who is in its path, but he tries anyway, and is still mildly disappointed when he fails.

One thing he had not counted on is that it's colder at sea. Perhaps Fjord could have told him that, if Caleb had thought to ask, but the fact is that he hadn't, and now he's left to ruminate on it as a lighter blue begins to seep into the star-studded darkness from the direction of the horizon. Surely there's a reason for it: the night air in the city had not been quite this frigid, and the climate itself is fairly tropical overall. Perhaps it's the openness. Water on every side, no buildings to funnel travelers' heat back at them from either side of narrow streets...yes, it's the openness, it must be. That would have been smart to think of beforehand, the notion of exposure, but it wasn't as if any of their little family save Fjord had a clue about the ocean, or how to navigate a ship, or really anything else about their current circumstances other than the basic knowledge that water is very wet.

Taking this ship had truly been a _terrible_ idea. And most likely, as with any ill-fated family outing, destined to end in tears.

Another shiver runs down his spine, but not from the cold this time. _Family._ He had said that to Nott, too. Admitted he cared for these people, schemed to keep them together as a cohesive unit, changed their game plan completely, and perhaps it can all be waved off as the product of being stuck _on a stolen ship_ with all of them without a viable escape route, perhaps it can be framed as a product of necessity later, but when he'd said it, the frightening thing is that he'd meant it. He'd called them _family_ and _meant it_ , as if he deserved such a thing, as if 'family' were anything more than a death sentence when it comes from him.

Something bubbles up in the back of his throat, something raw and hysterical like laughter, and Caleb swallows convulsively against it, reaches up quickly to smooth down some of Nott's windswept hair. It’s a decent distraction; Frumpkin is already in his little owl form, a gift for Beau for later, he cannot be pet like a cat, but Nott acts so catlike sometimes that it is almost easy to substitute greasy hair for soft fur. She had fallen asleep up there on his back, head on his shoulder — his sleeve is damp with drool already, but he has grown used to it by now — and arms loosely draped around his neck, and though the muscles in his back burn and his arms ache from holding her up, he can't quite bring himself to move her. He would feel absurdly guilty if she were to wake. And they have had such a day, she deserves a little extra rest.

She is perhaps the closest to family, truthfully. _Schwester_ , sister, and that is what she has become to him, in a sense. She had been his first mistake in his new conscious existence: becoming attached to a little goblin girl in a podunk jail cell and not fleeing from her side the moment they were free. Perhaps she is the start of all of this. If they had not stayed together, Caleb surely would have died, many times over, and would certainly have never come into contact with three strangers counting coin in a tavern and the two circus side-acts who had blown them together like a gale of personality and charm. Clever Nott and her small magics, so much potential and so much intelligence, could he even begin to consider now who he might be without her? A nameless huddled mass in the corner of a prison cell, a listless specter wandering the forests with no purpose, a fresh meal for gnolls in the dirt just outside of Trostenwald. Nobody.

Things had been so much easier when he hadn't thought to care about people. Things had been so much simpler when the only thing that mattered was turning back the hands of time, stealing his life back from the gods and redoing it until he got it right, when the only reasons he thought of other people had been in finding how to get what he wanted from them. Without Nott, would he have ever cared, casting Suggestion on her or on somebody else without permission? Would Beauregard's anger over Calianna's magic bowl have fazed him, would he have even _tried_ talking things out with her?

What of Mollymauk, would he have mattered if Nott hadn't forced Caleb to be honest, with himself and with her, about his feelings towards the tiefling? Towards all of them? Would that patch of snowless earth they'd left behind have meant a single thing without her to remind him that his mission is futile without these people beside him?

Would he have fired the final Firebolt at Lorenzo? Would he have crawled back up the stairs and left his friends to their fate instead?

Another shiver wracks him head to toe, harder this time, and Caleb pulls his coat tighter still, ignoring the creak of much abused seams as something rips just slightly along his sleeve. Nott stirs against his back and he runs his fingers mindlessly through her hair again, waits for her to settle.

Caring is no longer an option. No, he'd admitted that much to Nott tonight. Caring has happened, is happening, and it is nothing he can stop. Nothing he can change. A family they are, and gods help him, but he cannot run from this now. Out here in the ocean, there is not even anywhere he could go if he wanted to.

So the real question, then, is how long can they last. How long does he have before he lets them down? How long does he have before they see him for what he is: a monster, a murderer, before they cast him out? He will deserve it, when they do. That much he knows for certain.

And yet the pang he feels at the thought — not a pang, a gut-wrenching twist of his internal organs that throbs dully in his chest and spreads its slow ache out to every limb — is almost enough to double him over where he stands. The thought of not standing beside them, of not watching Jester evangelize some hapless civilian with all of her bewildering charm, not feeling his arm go numb from a "friendly" punch from Beauregard, not fighting to hide a smile at the sound of Fjord's deep, exasperated sigh as someone's shenanigans go too far. Not watching Yasha loom over some arrogant soldier or knock-kneed bandit with the awe of knowing that she is someone he will never have to face. Not getting to see Nott use a new spell, a new trick, and feeling that glow of pride well up in his chest when she pulls it off without a hitch. Not hearing Caduceus's mellow but decidedly delighted understatements as he studies some new sight, some new custom so commonplace to the rest of them.

The thought of seeing their faces, stony and hard and distrusting, when they know all that he's done. When he disappoints them. When he has to leave them.

Caleb has always been far, far too good at hurting the people he calls his family. Perhaps this one will break him too.

The last vestiges of inky black in the sky above have finally yielded to the encroaching dawn, and though the royal blue of twilight has not paled into the familiar grey of daylight, it is light enough that the ocean looks less foreboding, now. The crests of waves are no longer glints of ominous light in a jet-black abyss, but glittering ripples, and Caleb knows from seeing the beach only a few days prior that eventually the unimpressive grey water will brighten to an enchanting blue-green once the sun begins to rise. He looks up and there's one last gleam there, one last star not yet wiped away by the sun. He's always had a gift for knowing exactly the time of day, exactly which way is north, but he has never had the skills to know the stars as well. The skies over Empire territories are so often grey, so often clouded over and bleak, but he remembers the clear nights, when his mother would take him by the hand and lead him into the field behind their home, when she would point up at a sky speckled with stars and name them for him, and teach him how to determine which were stars and which were other worlds entirely.

 _Other worlds,_ his mother would tell him, _and we do not know a thing about what they are like, liebling. Is that not wonderful? Maybe you will get to see them up close, someday. Yes, of course you will. I will be old and grey, and you, my smart boy, will come to visit me and it will be your turn to teach me. You will do incredible things one day, Schätzchen. Incredible._

Incredible things. Incredible and terrible, he has done both, and yet he is still here, shivering in the chill air, swaying on the deck of a ship he has stolen with his idiot friends, his new and strange family, staring up at a blip in the sky that he will never touch.

And he does not need to touch the stars, to do important work. This group, this strange bunch of assholes, they do good things. _He_ does good things. Not incredible things, not miracles, certainly not often smart things. But saving a town from gnolls. Freeing parents from a jail to reunite them with their children. Taking a bird from a swamp and giving her a home. Clearing the name of a circus. Rescuing a child from slavers. Protecting a woman from a belligerent suitor. These are not noteworthy events, nothing that the Empire would sing the praises of, not things that would inspire a bard to write a song in their honor. Things that Trent Ikithon would scoff at, that would displease him for their rashness, for their hastiness, for their spontaneity and utter lack of responsibility.

But still the most fun that Caleb has had in so very many years. Still the closest he has come so far to achieving his goals. Still the most human, the closest to being...the person that he wants to be, that he has felt since watching his home catch fire. A better person.

He will never be worthy of redemption. He will never be worthy of a family. He will never be happy until he has done what he's set out to do and erased his mistake. But where he is now...

Where he is now, that is a good place to start.

The light of the sun is beginning to catch on the waves, reflecting in sparkles and beams across the bow of the ship. On his back, Nott stirs again, close to waking.

Caleb closes his eyes, and if the smell of salt didn't cling to him like a second skin, if the wood beneath his feet didn't creak and tilt and pitch him forward and backward on his feet, the dull roar of the waves could almost be mistaken for the roaring of flames.

He takes a deep breath and lets them swallow him whole.

**Author's Note:**

> comments, kudos, and feedback are all greatly appreciated!


End file.
